Microsoft Updates the Shipping Versions of Windows 10

It’s Patch Tuesday, and you know what that means: Right, I spent the day driving to Pennsylvania. Oh, and Microsoft updated the shipping versions of Windows 10 too.

One odd note: Even though Microsoft stopped supporting the initial version of Windows 10 (version 1507), it actually updated that version today, too. There’s no official word on why, but one has to imagine it’s tied to recent nation state and ransomware attacks. Regardless, this means that all versions of Windows 10—1507, 1511, 1607, and 1703—were updated today with quality (non-feature) updates.

Addressed issue introduced by KB4022716 where Internet Explorer 11 may close unexpectedly when you visit some websites.

Addressed issue to improve MediaCreationTool.exe support for Setup Tourniquet scenarios.

Addressed issue with CoreMessaging.dll that may cause 32-bit apps to crash on the 64-bit version of the Windows OS.

Addressed an issue where Visual Studio or a WPF application may terminate unexpectedly (stops responding, followed by a crash) when running on a pen and/or touch enabled machine with Windows 10 Creators Update.

Addressed issue that causes the system to crash when certain USB devices are unplugged while the system is asleep.

Addressed issues with screen orientation that stops working after lid close and lid open transitions.

Addressed issue where users could not elevate to Administrator through the User Account Control (UAC) dialog when using a smart card.

Addressed issue where input using the Korean handwriting feature dropped the last character of a word or moved it to the next line incorrectly.

Addressed issue with a race condition between the App-V Catalog Manager and the Profile Roaming Service. A new registry key is available to control the waiting period for App-V Catalog Manager, which allows any third-party Profile Roaming Service to complete.

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Congratulations on your move to PA, Paul. We are just southwest of you in York. We have several clients in the Reading/Lancaster area as well. Maybe you will someday do a Windows Weekly or First Ring Daily meetup in the Lancaster area. Several great brewing companies there.

I'm in Lancaster and would welcome a Thurrott meetup. We have lots of good breweries. Lancaster Brewing Company, Mad Chef, JoBoys, St. Boniface, not to mention nearby Troegs (Hershey) and Victory (Downingtown).

Can anybody tell me what "Setup Tourniquet scenarios" are? Or what Microsoft meant to say when they said this?

In all probability, I don't really need to know. But I'm not sure that I don't need to know until I know what the heck they're talking about. I am a regular customer of MediaCreationTool.

(The usual googling hasn't seemed to help. Could they have meant turnkey? But why the capital T? MS uses tourniquet to mean turnstile or round-robin on fr-fr pages (DITA glitch?), but neither seems to apply)

Being the only guy still running WP 10, I awoke to a Lumia 640 hung at the Windows logo during the presumed auto-reboot. The first forced reboot got things running but all apps were "pending" (I guess they forced a global app update cycle), and it took a second reboot to clean up the rest, sorta. Word, Powerpoint, and Excel are all hung in the update queue with errors.

I love WP as much as I hate it.

And with the end of support for WP8x, we loyal poor bastards are wondering what happens when a clean reinstall is attempted. For issues such as the above.

Paul -- this reinstall info would be of interest to more people than you might suppose.

Another perfect example why Windows 10 was released to the public as a free product - it wasn't ready then, and is still undergoing revisions. What they [Microsoft] will not admit is without the roll-out of W10, the company was facing the real threat of laying off staff. By giving-away W10 in its unfinished state, to consumers and packaging it with new systems, they were able to save their market. At what expense? Consumers were duped into believing W10 was stable.

Fact is, Windows 7 is the most stable product released, and still preferred by majority of industries very satisfied with its performance.

Everyone knows that Microsoft gets it right after SP2 gets released. That's always been a running thing with their software. I haven't had any serious compatibility issues since 1511 was released. It's been running stable for me.

Show me any software, much less any OS with any sort of decent user base, that doesn't have the same number of patches. Seriously, there's nothing in this article that indicates instability or poor quality.

During the initial offering of W10 customers frequently [daily] inquired whether or organization recommended accepting the upgrade. Our reply is based on majority of our walk in and contract customers - that to accept W10 is also to accept additional fees for repairs. Majority of our contract customers are staying with what just works and have saved thousand of dollars in support fees that others have incurred since the roll-out.

The majority of issues I've seen with compatibility had to do with out-of-date drivers. In-place upgrades generally DON'T WORK because of this. And this is the reason why Microsoft has traditionally supported enterprises via a wipe-and-upgrade scenario for Windows upgrades. The whole Microsoft Deployment Toolkit is based around that concept.

There are two camps regarding this, as you know, and ignoring this fact doesn't mitigate it. Camp one is new equipment, drivers built to spec. This accounts for huge investment for medium to large corporations in bending to the upgrade offered. Camp two is the majority of the market, where IT support activities are still profitable in both maintenance and servicing W7 versions. Those carrying water for W10 is still the minority.

Your first example makes no sense because new hardware is always developed for the current version of Windows, not the older one. Microsoft won't let a hardware manufacturer get logo certification for an older version of Windows while a newer one has been released. In fact, there's always a cutoff date for legacy certification once a new version arrives (only so many months). A manufacturer can provide logo certification on old hardware for an old version of Windows while ignoring the new version of Windows, but that also spells a compatibility disaster for customers adopting that hardware and trying to mix and match with modern hardware.

IT support focusing on only older versions of Windows has time-and-time-again proven to be a faulty proposal because the OEM's will leave them, and their clients, in the dust. IT has be updating to the latest technologies because of 2 reasons: security, and technology innovations defeating warranty lifecycles. Security threats and manufacturing doesn't stand still. IT can't either, otherwise you will just never understand technology. IT isn't a means to an end. IT never ends because technology doesn't.

Your first example makes no sense because... new hardware is always developed for the current version of Windows, not the older one.

False. Numerous manufactures we do business with provide newer platforms based on our customers needs.

Microsoft won't let a hardware manufacturer get logo certification for an older version of Windows while a newer one has been released. In fact, there's always a cutoff date for legacy certification once a new version arrives (only so many months). A manufacturer can provide logo certification on old hardware for an old version of Windows while ignoring the new version of Windows, but that also spells a compatibility disaster for customers adopting that hardware and trying to mix and match with modern hardware.

I agree. However, I'm not sure where you are going with this example, seeing that the narrative is camp one is about drivers for new systems...

IT support focusing on only older versions of Windows has time-and-time-again proven to be a faulty proposal because the OEM's will leave them, and their clients, in the dust.

Pardon me, I had to share this misconception with our IT staff...

[people shaking their heads, some laughing... ]

IT has be updating to the latest technologies because of 2 reasons: security, and technology innovations defeating warranty lifecycles. Security threats and manufacturing doesn't stand still. IT can't either, otherwise you will just never understand technology.

Ah, one of our interns [bachelor's in computer science] wanted to ask you.... How many years have you been in this industry? What was your role? What was the composition of your assets? Please, do share...

IT isn't a means to an end. IT never ends because technology doesn't.

I'm lost. IT is many components, and is core to the means. The end has no bearing in this narrative, or you're changing the discussion to suit a narrow paradigm?

"Numerous manufactures we do business with provide newer platforms based on our customers needs."

You won't find Kaby Lake systems with Windows 7. Well, if you do, I'm just gonna laugh, considering that if your silicon vendor isn't getting support from the OS vendor, god help you if you have a PC manufacturer that thinks they know better than either.

"IT support focusing on only older versions of Windows has time-and-time-again proven to be a faulty proposal because the OEM's will leave them, and their clients, in the dust.

Pardon me, I had to share this misconception with our IT staff...

[people shaking their heads, some laughing... ]"

Keep laughing, chuckles. Intel has 2 more processor revisions being worked on right now. Kaby Lake has already been on the market for a bit now and has no OS support for anything older than Windows 10. Coffee Lake ships later in the year and still won't. And next year, a new processor family will ship, likely with a new socket altogether. Skylake is already 2 years old, and you won't be able to keep buying those forever. Haswell is pretty much off the market now. This is your OEM's leaving you and your clients behind. They'll need new systems and you won't be able to buy Windows 7-compatible machines in the very near future.

Well....unless you wanna move them to embedded systems to run client-facing applications. I hear Intel will still sell obsolete processors in the embedded channel. Good luck on finding a manufacturer that will build a system and support a thick client application that way though.

"Ah, one of our interns [bachelor's in computer science] wanted to ask you.... How many years have you been in this industry? What was your role? What was the composition of your assets? Please, do share..."

How much actual hands-on experience do they even have? My experience with CS and CE degree holders is that they don't even have the most basic level of technical experience with a computer system, can't install an OS, and don't even know how to troubleshoot or diagnose a problem. That is, unless they've possibly taken an A+ course as a side cert, to which most of their actual hands-on technical ability comes from. Degree holders have a load of theory in their head, but practise is something altogether different. IT firms hire more people with practical skills learned through certifications than by degrees, and it's been like that for several years now. In fact, most IT firms now consider Computer Science graduates to be over-qualified and won't even look at them. Some of that relates to pay grades too (see below). If you want to get a job at Intel designing silicon, by all means, a degree is the way to go. If you want to work in a major IT firm, it's overkill, and don't expect a job. I've seen this happen to plenty of graduates that work for me over summers. Many end up going back to private tech schools (Devry and such), or just aiming for a big certification (like MCSA or MCSE) just to get their foot in the door. I've talked to plenty of grads to see what would-be employers say, and the consensus is that a) they won't get a job without experience, and b) they won't get experience without practical skills. Most consider their degree to be a waste of money and time. Once in a while you get the odd student that works abroad. The only reason they like that they got a degree is because of visa requirements in most foreign countries require a full university degree, and won't accept a diploma. Quite often, IT is not the career path they choose when they work abroad though.

Let me tell you a little known fact about PC manufacturing:

The average lifespan of a PC is about 3 years. Any manufacturer will tell you this. They expect that.

This the reason why consumer systems don't have warranties that extend beyond that term. Business systems SOMETIMES (but not always) include a 3 year warranty, but you pay extra for business systems. People (in marketing) will sometimes say "you pay more because they're more reliable", but the truth is that they just aren't - you're just getting that warranty included. A lot of manufacturers only offer lease or financing for 36 months, but if you go over, you'll pay a hefty premium. This is all based around expected lifespan - nothing more. It isn't rocket science where they get these numbers from: it's Quality Assurance testing results. Same for anything. Ask any manufacturing insider that deals with Chinese manufacturing. This isn't really a secret.

The other thing you need to realize is that PC manufacturers don't give two sh*ts about supporting their hardware. This is why they outsource all aspects of support, and even in-warranty repair, to third-party companies. NONE of the PC manufacturers do refurbishing or repairs of dead systems. None. Zero. Zilch. They all just dispose of DOA machines and auction lots off to refurbisher companies. Why don't they do this? Because their business is to build and sell hardware - new hardware. To offer respectable support and warranty service would cost them huge money which is why most support is being out-sourced to outside contracts in low-pay countries. They charge a premium to their customers for it for their own inconvenience. All the companies like Dell, HP, and Lenovo offer business services too. They'll charge a hefty premium to any large-scale enterprise to do on-site tech support, but they hope that their prices will sway clients away. As an independent IT firm, you're just undercutting the manufacturers that provide that because they can't be bothered, and it costs too much for them to do on-site. It's a money-losing endeavour, even when they do get large-scale enterprises getting, say, EMC to do their logistics when they purchase from Dell. That's a cold, hard fact. Enterprise companies are starting to get wise about this and moving to in-house remote support and moving everything [back] to cloud and datacenter computing so that they don't have to deal with client system bullsh*t. VDI is the smartest, most-efficient way to deploy applications to clients now. But then, the client doesn't really matter in that scenario. Instead of dealing with 3 year PC lifecycles and poor support options, most smart companies are utilizing embedded thin client hardware that already comes with long-term warranty, that doesn't have OS reliability or security issues, nor does it suffer from driver issues. And this is why the days of the full-service IT firm are numbered.

Windows 10 is as reliable on OEM certified hardware as Windows 7 is. Patches on both are a nightmare, but that isn't the OEM's fault. I'd rather stick to hardware vendor support than try to band-aid unsupported patches onto a legacy OS. Nobody should touch an OS that doesn't have proper OEM support, and that's what you're facing with current Kaby Lake and future Intel architectures. Windows 10 is far better for newer hardware what with proper support for UEFI, Secure Boot, TPM 2.0, USB 3.x, proper support for TRIM, better native AHCI SATA support, and a vastly superior virtualization system over what was provided with Windows 7, among other things.

Personally, I've moved along to alternative options anyway. I won't go back to Windows 7, but Windows 10 isn't a big improvement for usage scenarios. For a company of any decent size, I would still say VDI is the best way to do things, unless you can afford to turn every app into a web service. Client PC's are a headache, no matter how you look at things. Ops are a hassle that I know most IT firms would also rather not have to deal with. I may have issues with Windows 10 updates from time to time, but I have far less issues with it on certified hardware than I do on certified hardware for Windows 7, both new and old.

Oh, and as far as your MDT question goes: apparently you don't realize that MDT is the foundation for SCCM. If you don't understand MDT, you won't be very proficient with SCCM deployments, since SCCM is just a front-end for MDT with some extra scripts.

Years of developing business continuity solutions has paid off, our focus and a niche market. Our customers aren't interested in techno-bable, or tl-dr sermons, let alone technoneeze either. Our customers are interested in business continuity, and will pay top dollar for this service.

Again, before you frantically reply with a torrid of chest thumping responses, consider this is a fraction of our business solutions. There are those that migrated to 10 platform, albeit, yes... the process to which we both agree is an ongoing headache. However, our engineers and admins have tackled those, and continue to develop and build catered support products.

I'm not from the US, sorry, and besides, I'm not the kind of person to discuss my business endeavours on a public forum because of client confidentiality agreements, as well as the point that it's nobody's business but my own, but I'll say this:

I've had my fair share of corporate clients before. Lately I've been settling down with the SMB market because that's where real growth is, but I still get the odd large contract.

I would debate up and down anybody that instantly puts down whitepapers. For better or worse, whitepapers give you insights into vendors corporate strategies. Lately, Microsoft's has been faltering, but I still do things by the book because ultimately, my clients have strategic needs for technology, and getting into supported configurations is how you're going to get the best up-level support. You can't move fast and adapt to market conditions when you're dealing with custom solutions, and that's why I don't favour them. I've gotten many customers into SPLA with VDI because even though it takes a good amount of migration time, what you're left with is a recurring revenue stream with very little maintenance. Many customers are looking to move away from Microsoft for solutions though. "The Microsoft Stack" doesn't sell like it used to. But I've adapted. Some clients are moving to Linux, not so much for cost ("support" is always a fluid topic when it comes to cost, especially in Microsoft's previous marketing arguments against Linux, which I find their current policy of embracing it very odd and somewhat revealing), but for flexibility and control. Some are moving wholesale to Google, and I REALLY like the admin simplicity for Google services. Everything is so much simpler than Microsoft. Microsoft has just been screwing over resellers with the CSP program lately. It's a joke. I've aired my complaints on recent previous articles which you're free to read. Bottom line is: Microsoft is pushing away resellers because of complications in their system, and they just won't sell the product for them.

We're discussing one fraction, albeit a cashcow for the foreseeable future, of our business model. You've made good points, stick to the topic in the future instead of trolling. It would be easier on everyone involved.

We have ongoing plans and support schedules for W10 products from end-users to server-side side clients. [lol] I'm shocked when people assume all we do is what they think we do and troll.

Classical rhetoric that I've seen many times, in many forums, circles, and think tanks. With nearly 30 years in the industry, several degrees, in varying capacities from engineer to CIO [currently], your paradigm is limited to your experience. Long after this column ends, at the end of the day, what consumers buy and maintain boils down to their personal experience, good or bad, the market will always endure, and IT support will always remain.

Bottom line is W10 is not stable for our clients, customers, and contracts.

You talk about "classic rhetoric". Heh. #1 troll bullsh*ttery on the Internet is to start flashing credentials. I can't even count the number of people that have stated false claims of their credentials online. Even so, anybody that does, I don't put any faith into, especially using it as an argument.

Then you'll appreciate judging others based on their avatar, claims they haven't a clue about IT, oh and let's not forget the comment about being out of business are equally off topic... They're stated to derail the real issue, lack of understanding, and an attempt to beat on one's chest.

You've been trolling and this is what happens. I question your experience based on poor use of English language on the above points.

The majority of issues I've seen with compatibility had to do with out-of-date drivers.

The narrative is stability, not your point on compatibility.

In-place upgrades generally DON'T WORK because of this. And this is the reason why Microsoft has traditionally supported enterprises via a wipe-and-upgrade scenario...

For enterprises? We are a full-service enterprise support activity, rarely do we wipe and upgrade systems. Using various push protocols, various imaging routines, W7 systems are routinely maintained, patched, and locked to prevent this vary draconian process.

The whole Microsoft Deployment Toolkit is based around that concept.

YouYou ever use any other means to update a system, remotely or on-site?

Windows 7 has plenty of problems of its own. .Net Framework support was a disaster around the Windows 7 timeframe. The old runtimes were crap. I'm glad that Windows 10 jettisoned support for them, and it's much more stable because of it. Even with .Net Framework 2.x-4.x, I'm just not seeing businesses run into compatibility headaches on Windows 10 because of .Net updates. Patch Tuesday on Windows 7 was always a nail-biting experience, but Microsoft seems to have fixed version compatibility issues in Windows 10, probably because of better WinSxS.

OEM Windows 10 systems run it far better than a lot of systems that shipped with Windows 7. And drivers on new hardware on Windows 10 works far better than Windows 7 era certified hardware did on that OS. The issues I find people have are with the Current Branch. LTSB is as stable as the best *nix server version, and I've worked with IT firms whose clients haven't had reboots of those for nearly 10 years.

Not really, All the new hardware is supported by Windows 7 as well. Yes, Windows 10 has additional support for devices such as pen etc but for 99% of the market plays no role. As far as I know hardware and software under Windows 7 will be fully supported at least until 2020. In the next three years, we might not even have Windows 10 anymore. Future is uncertain.

MS keeps prompting me to upgrade to Creators Update but installation fails on my PC every time. I guess If I want to be up-to-date I'll have to buy a new PC. I suspect that upgrading from Win7 to Win10 wasn't such a great idea (my kids' laptops with W10 preinstalled work fine). Unfortunately I missed the Window for going back to 7. There's probably some way to fix it or go back to 7, but I'm long over messing with Windows installation issues, it's just a tool to me now.

In reply to skane2600:I known. Mine was a Dell Venue 8 with just 32 Gb. I had free about 12 Gb before sucess.I had just 8 Gb free, The upgrade start but stall in the middle. Very strict minimum is 12 Gb free. After the upgrade reinstall all the software I had removed (mail, browser, log file, tmp files, etc).

There's all sorts of stuff that can go wrong. One strategy is to wait as MS makes continual compatibility improvements, and hope your problems get solved, if eventually. Personally I've had better luck with ISOs, & once or twice had to copy the files from the ISO to a folder on the HDD & run setup from there. Worst case I ran into was with my Winbook... the graphics drivers had updated a few times since the orig. 10, & the updated versions were incompatible with 1703, which of course the update to 1703 insisted on using. Installing 1703 fresh worked, using the original drivers before all the driver updates.

>>"Unfortunately I missed the Window for going back to 7. There's probably some way to fix it or go back to 7, but I'm long over messing with Windows installation issues, it's just a tool to me now."

When you upgrade versions or builds, unless you run Windows' Disk Cleanup, the old stuff sticks around, mainly in a folder called C:Windows.old. It lets you roll back for ~1 mo. *I think* before Windows deletes that stuff. Best way to go back IMHO is to restore a disk image backup [if you have one] -- otherwise it means getting rid of 10's partitions & re-installing 7 fresh.

I don't use Windows Update on Windows 10 at all. There's a Windows Update tool like that let me choose what I want install. I only install security updates. I handle the drivers myself, I don't need Microsoft babysitting me. And when there's a new build I download the ISO and do a clean install. The upgrade via Windows Update takes way too fucking long and leaves a lot of shit on your disk while a clean install takes 10 minutes plus an hour to set everything and install all my programs back.

While on my rock solid Windows 7 machine all I do is change the option on Windows Update to warn me about new updates and I only choose the security updates also and I don't have to worry about anything.

A couple businesses have no IT departments relying solely on this update service, which undermined their business continuity, which led to thousands of dollars on hiring our team to remedy their outage.

I did run Windows 10 for about 8 months total but after i found out that OS is plagued with the problems and also learned that it doesn't work well on the latest and greatest hardware i switched back to Windows 7 and it was the best thing I did. Multi GPU and Multi CPU platform i have finally works flawless.

That might very well be the case if Creators update introduced some incompatibility with my PC. Since such problems will undoubtedly occur on some PCs, the responsible thing for MS to do is to track the success or failure of updates and if an update fails repeatedly on a particular PC to display a message indicating the failure and stop prompting the user to install an update the will inevitably fail.

The next option I would try would be removing all third-party drivers. That's not for the faint of heart though, and if you don't do it right, you can make your system unbootable. There is a command that will do it for you though - I'll try to find it later. Third-party drivers lead to all kinds of issues with upgrades, especially if there are some that are still left over from the old Windows 7 install.

The process to remove third-party drivers involves booting into a command-prompt mode, either through the built-in Windows Recovery Environment, or via the "Repair my PC" link on the language selection screen on a Windows installation disc/disk.

There are some qualms:

1) You should know what you're doing. If you don't understand these terms, don't even try it.

2) If you have a third-party drive controller driver for a common AHCI-compatible SATA controller (most common), swap the driver for the Microsoft in-box AHCI driver before continuing. If it's RAID, you're probably SOL, or else you'll have to pick which drivers to uninstall, and I'm not getting into that here because it's far more complicated.

3) You should remove drivers via the Apps & Features or via the 'Uninstall a program' section of Control Panel first, so as to clean up additional utility programs associated with those drivers.

You can use the FOR command to get it to remove multiple files at a time. To remove every OEM (third-party) driver in Windows and only use the in-box drivers, the full command for WinRE is (assuming your installation drive is C:):

for %G in (oem*.inf) do (dism /image:c: /remove-driver /driver:%G)

I use the FOR command instead of FORFILES because FORFILES isn't in the search path on WinRE.

Note: this is a brute-force removal of driver INF files only. It doesn't necessarily remove driver settings from your system registry, so if you have corrupt or incompatible settings there, this also won't necessarily fix problems when you reinstall new drivers over top - it's just one option to clean out old extraneous drivers to refresh your install. Driver INF's are SUPPOSED TO remove registry settings upon removal, but they often don't.

If that doesn't fix driver issues, flatten the system (that's IT talk for "backup and wipe it and do a clean install with the latest build"). If that still doesn't fix the problem, talk to the PC OEM's support or buy a new computer.

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These security patch updates are never explicitly installed on any of my devices registered with the Insiders Program. Have Insiders already received them with the last Fast or Slow Ring builds? Will we receive them later? How do we know if we receive them at all?

Sometimes you receive them earlier, sometimes later. It's call "pre-release" software. And, for living software (a current name for such software that is continually updated via Internet) such is life.